Ramifications of students on more than one team

Rather than further hijack another thread, I thought I should start a new one and ask about others’ experience of having a member or members on 2 or more teams. This Q & A makes it legal, but I’m wondering whether the net effect is potentially positive, or whether it’s something we simply endure because enforcement is impractical. I realize that different teams will have a variety of reasons for why they would choose to have members serving multiple teams, and offer my team as only one of (probably) many scenarios.

We have typically 8 – 10 students, which has remained fairly stable over the past 3 seasons. About 3-4 are regular, committed members, and the regulars are invariably veterans. The irregular attenders have not yet made robotics their priority, but I don’t want to dismiss them because almost all of our committed veterans were once irregular rookies who got “hooked” by the excitement of competing at a tournament. As a result, we have the numbers, but not the consistency or filling of important roles for 2 separated teams. So for us the options are: 1) one unified team or 2) 2 teams with shared/crossover members. (For some other teams, clearly separated teams at a single site would be another alternative, but this is not an option for us).
[INDENT]
Advantages of us as 2 teams (rather than 1) for us
[LIST=1]
*]By separating veteran/rookie teams, the rookies get a chance to test out their ideas. When they get help from the vets, it’s as their request, not because they’ve been pushed aside.
*]There is nothing like the experience of driving a robot on the field, and the rookies would probably not get the opportunity to drive or coach if we had only one team.
[/LIST]

Disadvantages of 2 teams for us
[LIST=1]
*]More cost
*]More chaos – both teams share a computer and sometimes download the wrong program between matches. Double the matches means more scurrying to get on the field in time.
[/LIST]

Advantages of us as 2 teams for everyone else
[LIST=1]
*]Our rookie bot tends to be very simple and to rank low – our opponents love this. Mid-level teams are comforted in knowing that they did better than someone else.
*]More revenue for tournament organizers. More teams for better seeding (especially the year there were 24 registered teams, including our 2 bots).
*]A wider of variety of robots playing on the field means more designs to see, even if some are very simple.
[/LIST]

Disadvantages of us as 2 teams for everyone else
[LIST=1]
*]Our rookie bot tends to be simple and rank low – our alliance partners don’t like this.
*]In a crowded tournament, an extra bot lengthens the day.
*]Having crossover members opens the door for other teams to have crossover members as well, with potentially different negative impacts.
[/LIST][/INDENT]

But really, with the ruling, the door is open for everyone, regardless of what we do.

I’m guilty of doing the Q&A question :frowning: But I wanted a ruling. Let me say that I agree with Karthik. When I lived in NZ the project team played Aussie Rules Football which seem to consist of “There are no rules except for backchating the ref. Here is how you score points” Karthik has a problem, he has teams like the 4 guys from Green Eggs to 10 team groups of 50+ roboteers (Rick TYler and Foster) to an entire county of teams that work as one (NZ and China) and a game that scores points. So he’s put a light hand (yay Karthik) to the rules.

But to ManicMechanics points:

Run your teams the way you want.

This year for us it looks like there will be:
2 Veteran teams - hard core kids with 2+ years of experience that have worked all summer
1 All girl team - met all summer and have a “ring” up on Round Up
1 All girl team - the World champion ship contender from last year, took the summer off but they are back.
6 Other teams - new and old roboteers

4 veteran programmers and X new programmers. These get spread across all of the robots, and we will have 2 programmers on each robot to insure that we will have a programmer for a robot at an event.

In January we’ve allowed swaps. Teams can pick new team members. They may or may not redo the robot. So come March I may have teams that have had a variety of members.

So Bob has decided that if ANY Dowingtown team wins a berth to Disney, that all Downingtown team members can go, no matter what robot they worked on. Hopefully we will have more than one team that qualifies to go.

For the year all ten robots will compete. 3 will be great 3 will be OK and 4 will be happy to be able to play. At the end of every event we talk about the robots as a group and say things that would make it better.

In summary 50 roboteers have input into 10 robots that are built and driven by teams of 5. Programming is spread so that 2 programmers cover each robot to be available at an event. So while it’s not a group effort it is.

Of course our team 89 has a history of not listening to anyone about anything so their mileage may vary.

So robot awards go to the most current team working on the robot. Team awards goto the team. Past members and mentors bask in the glory of the things that at one time they had their fingers in.

[LIST=1]
*]Our rookie bot tends to be very simple and to rank low – our opponents love this. Mid-level teams are comforted in knowing that they did better than someone else.
*]More revenue for tournament organizers. More teams for better seeding (especially the year there were 24 registered teams, including our 2 bots).
*]A wider of variety of robots playing on the field means more designs to see, even if some are very simple.
[/LIST]

Disadvantages of us as 2 teams for everyone else
[LIST=1]
*]Our rookie bot tends to be simple and rank low – our alliance partners don’t like this.
*]In a crowded tournament, an extra bot lengthens the day.
*]Having crossover members opens the door for other teams to have crossover members as well, with potentially different negative impacts.
[/LIST][/INDENT]

But really, with the ruling, the door is open for everyone, regardless of what we do.

didnt know why you added those lists but okk…
you are not supose to count on your teams to “suck”
you are suppose to count the competitions before they gather enough experience to become the “good” teams :slight_smile:

on topic:
during our first year, we had 1 robot and 2 people
one programmed, they built it together
now, we have 2-3 teams mixed with experienced commuted members and rookies that are just starting out
the two top teams (with 2 experienced persons on each team) basically recruit whoever they want helping out (build, clean up, battery management)
and after a competition the “rookies” will have a chance to have their own “team”
with their ideas and gain experience that way
in the two main teams, there are two programmers, (one is more experienced and helps the other when he needs it) and one of them is also the designer (CADDs the robot, and edits it based on the teams opinion) for the third team, if there design is REALLY not working, the designer (CADDer) will give then a few simple designs to build upon

the rest of the members in the “top 2 teams” generally build their own robot, and if they are done their part, then they will help out whoever needs help

so in our club, pretty much everyone does SOMETHING in every other robot
thats about it
hope i didnt ramble too much :wink:

My main reason for adding the lists is that sometimes, even when things are allowed, a significant number of people feel they shouldn’t be allowed because they feel that the other team is getting an “unfair advantage.” I wanted to demonstrate that our team benefits in experience and inspiration, but on balance, the other teams don’t come out the worse for our gain, and even benefit a little.

We never plan for our teams to perform poorly, but realistically, if you start from ground zero and only put in a couple hours 1-3 times a month, there are limits on how much you can accomplish. Last year, the rookie team built a robot with a really nice driving base (which the veterans copied), but never really got a lift/dumper that worked effectively. Although they knew that their scoring ability was severely limited, they decided to take it onto the field just for the experience. And this year, they’re veterans, and they’re better. And we have a new group of rookies to “push us up” from the bottom.

We don’t play because we’re good – we play because we want to get better.